But still in these mystical dreamings
Comfort and strength is given;
These soulful, loving, and tender thoughts
Bring us nearer heaven.
And nature is full of subtle charms
That speak to the soul alone;
And they soothe and purify and bless,
Nearing the setting sun.
SPRING-TIME.
A monotone of love and song,
In cadence mild, serene
As unseen harps borne on the wind,
Breathes over all the scene.
I love thee yet, beauteous time;
Yet oh, so far away
Adown the dim forsaken past
Thou lead’st my thoughts to-day.
So grand, awak’ning from death’s sleep,
So regally adorned
Art thou, O nature’s queen; and I
Thy absence long have mourned
As for the dead who come no more.
Across a wintry sea
I look in vain; only in dreams
Do they return to me.
The melody of other times,
In many an olden song,
Echoing down the vanished years
In interminable throng,
Steals o’er my soul, and I would wake
The dear old strains again,
Though fraught with many banished hopes,
Delusive dreams, and vain.
WE HAVE MISSED THEE.
A SONG.
When the low, sweet winds of summer
Play among the wildwood trees,
And the waves of ocean murmur,
And the flow’rets ope their leaves;
In the evening’s dewy hours,
At the twilight’s dreamy ray,
In the morning’s balmy bowers,
All the long, fair summer’s day.